Aviation Topics Intro

   Not sure what it was that sparked my interest in flying, looking up at passenger planes wondering where their headed, my interest in mechanical things, traveling, not being a passenger (ever) no matter what type of vessel, my first flight, or my first landing. There is no greater fun than landing an airplane; this most likely is the reason that of all of the different things I've gotten into, flying is the only one I can not seem to not do.
    The path to where I am as far as certificate level goes is much farther than I ever imagined. When I began flying, I knew that it was in my heart. Never realizing that becoming a marketable pilot was something that I could possibly attain.

   Getting here has been quite a journey. My training has been broken into 5 parts.

• The first part I call "the beginning", is when I took my first flight with the flight instructor and DPE at a little flight school at Grosse Ill Municipal Airport. I soloed in under 12 hours of flight training. After growing weary of driving 45 miles to get to the school and some personal stuff, I hung it up for around 6 months. During that time I could not stop thinking about flying, it was always in the back of my mind. 
• The second part I like to call  "swing and a miss," was at a flight school called A Different Approach at Willow Run. This was a great school, or so I thought. They had new Diamond Katana DA 20 trainers that were a blast to fly. This all ended when the flight school went belly up, (probably because one of their instructor's experienced an engine failure just after departure from Mettetal in Canton in their only Cessna 150). 
• The third part is titled "I'm going to be a what !" I began another round of flight training at Mettetal  air port with a guy who was aspiring to get into the majors named Ben. I was all the way up to making an appointment with a DPE out of Pontiac air port named Mary Carpenter. It was in late December 1998, I was scheduled to take "the ride" first thing in the morning. I was all set to go, got up, tied up a few loose ends when my phone rang. It was Mary, she called to tell me that she was not feeling very well and needed to reschedule. After we hung up I just thought, well I'll call her back and reschedule next week sometime. Then, my wife Laura comes into the living room to ask me when I thought I would be home. I replied that Mary had cancelled and we were going to reschedule. Then she says, guess what? I said what? she said, your going to be a dad! I was rushed with a million feelings all at once. That day I'll never forget. Needless to say I did not call Mary back. 

Now I have three, Tyler Mason and Halie.

• The fourth part is "finally." Five years later I hooked up with Cal Downing back when he was running Cal's flying service out of Willow Run. I earned my private pilot certificate with none other than DPE Bill Lewis. Both of which are ironically on staff at Eagle flight center. 
• The fifth part is basically  "OK enough is enough." After flying rentals out of a bunch of airports until 2009 I had given in to the never ending need to be flying. I began formal flight training in EMU's Aviation Flight and Technology program. 

    My goal at this point in flight training is to become a CFI and eventually MEII, I'm not sure where it will take me, however I am sure that I'm headed in the right direction. Currently I hold a commercial instrument certificate, working on multi-engine add on.